Two coos Taffy

Naming and shaming hospitals (Report, 27 March) may help anyone inside the M25, where they can hop on the tube and go to an alternative hospital, but here in Lincolnshire that is not an option. The hospitals are 30-plus miles apart and public transport is almost non-existent. What is needed here are more clinical staff and the funding to pay for them.David Harding-PriceCouncil member, East Midlands, RCN

• I must commend Mike Ledwidge's open letter to readers (27 March). As a retired primary school headteacher, I wholeheartedly agree with his central point that you cannot performance-measure a complex system by outputs. The market dogma which has ruled so much political thinking these last decades simply does not work when applied to policing, education, health and social services. Bleeding obvious or what?John GardnerOldham

• Surely one of the more politically interesting facts about the production and acceptance of the 1963 Beeching report into the future of the railways, but one largely overlooked in comment this week (Letters, 29 March), is that Beeching owed his position to Harold Macmillan's minister of transport, Ernest Marples, a man who had made much of his money from building major roads in Britain.David CanningNorwich, Norfolk

• Wood pigeons in the south must have a different accent (Letters, 28 March). Here they say "Take two coos (pause) Taffy".Francesca InskippSt Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

• It's very helpful of your correspondents to interpret the what the wood pigeon's really cooing. Now could anyone please help me to translate the elaborate and beautiful virtuoso solo our male thrush currently performs from daybreak until late afternoon from the heights of our nearby sycamore tree? He's at it this time every year and I worry that he doesn't allow enough energy for other important matters.Suzi MacintyreBishops Frome, Worcestershire